Tag: "china"

I’ve belabored the organizational aspects of China’s system of anti-access systems because bureaucratic boundaries matter. AirSea Battle seeks, above all, to iron out the wrinkles that could prevent tight cooperation between the United States Navy and the United States Air Force. Years of hard won experience have demonstrated that military organizations don’t necessarily play well together; they have different priorities, different practices, and often different system of communication that generate friction and detract from overall capability. The history of USN and USAF collaboration in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, and the Gulf is littered with stories of hostility, rivalry, and miscommunication. The Pentagon understands this, and over the years has enacted a plethora of reforms (not least the Goldwater-Nichols Act) to ensure that the Air Force and the Navy can operate effectively together.

As of yet there is little indication that the PLAN, PLAAF, and 2nd Artillery have developed the practices necessary to ensure an efficient, effective partnership in battle.

When workers are rioting because their lives are so awful that there’s absolutely nothing to lose, it’s pretty bloody awful. Let’s just hope international pressure continues to push Apple to “work with Foxconn” to improve conditions. After all, what power does one of the world’s most influential corporations really have to dictate the conditions of work for its manufacturers??? And of course, since consumers clearly won’t pay a penny more to acquire the coolness of an Apple product, the idea of creating work conditions that would make suicide nets unnecessary is obviously impossible……

Reports on Monday indicated that the PLAN has finally settled on a name for its aircraft carrier, heretofore known as the ex-Varyag. While speculation included names such as “Beijing,” “Mao Zedong,” and “Shi Lang,” the PLAN instead decided to adopt a relatively conventional naming strategy, dubbing the refurbished Soviet-era carrier “Liaoning” in honor of the province that has hosted the warship’s refit.

Most analysts agree that China will pursue the construction of additional aircraft carriers, but at this point the opacity of Chinese defense planning has not revealed how many ships the PLAN intends to operate. In a recent article for Globe Magazine, a Chinese security scholar and major general argued that China needs up to five carriers to manage its maritime security…

Two Indian Air Force pilots who flew Chinese Defence Minister Gen Liang Guanglie in a special aircraft from Mumbai to Delhi on Wednesday received an unusual gift from the visiting dignitary.

The pilots were given two envelopes on their arrival in Delhi. On opening the envelopes, they found Rs 50,000 in Indian currency in each.

Sources said the captain of the aircraft informed Air Headquarters, and it was decided the cash would be deposited in the government depository. The cash could not be returned due to diplomatic sensitivities, they added.

Liang, who is on a five-day visit to India, arrived in Mumbai on Sunday.

I’m guessing that accepting the… gratuity would have resulted in more than the standard level of professional jeopardy that such transactions involve. The IAF also has a strong reputation for professionalism. I wonder what would have happened if the situation had been reversed…

As a regularly scheduled biennial exercise, RIMPAC happens regardless of the extant political situation in the Pacific. However, the absence of the People’s Liberation Army Navy – and the participation of Russia and India for the first time – combined with new tensions in the South China Sea, leaves the unavoidable impression that these exercises are geared towards managing the increasing naval power of China.

This year’s RIMPAC exercise took place against the backdrop of an unusually open debate about the future of U.S. maritime strategy in East Asia. The Obama administration’s “pivot” pledges a redistribution of U.S. military effort to the Western Pacific. The development of AirSea Battle, at least at tactical and operational levels, promises to enhance the ability of assets from different organizations to cooperate. China has viewed these debates with considerable concern.

The broader problem is that sponsorship of militant networks can have wide-ranging, unpredictable outcomes. Elements of the US supported mujahedeen eventually came to constitute part of the Taliban, giving harbor to enemies of the US. Pakistani support of the Taliban as well as other militant networks has led to many terrorist attacks in Pakistan and India. In the future, jihadist networks may undertake major attacks in Xinjiang and other parts of China.

Whether or not elements of the Pakistani Taliban are using Afghanistan as a safe haven, border conflicts will continue to create problems between Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the US…. Heavily armed bands of young, enthusiastic men undercut state power and authority, however attractive such networks may appear in the short term. Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India should take note, just as China and the US should closely monitor the development of new militant groups along the Durand Line.

Our friends in Beijing are evidently having a hard time settling on a name, though. Shi Lang, for a long-ago conqueror of Taiwan. When word got out, the ensuing uproar apparently convinced China’s leaders they were being a tad heavy-handed—especially when they were cultivating an era of good feelings across the Taiwan Strait. Since then the poor ship has gone by “ex-Varyag,” truly an undignified moniker to grace China’s first operational carrier.

That’s where you can help. What kind of name should the ship have? Should it overawe all who behold it, sporting a name like IndisputableSovereign of the Sea? Should it emphasize the cuddly side of Chinese sea power, with something like Panda Bear or Hello Kitty? Or something else? Please tell us! Enter your response in the comments below. Our crack editorial team will judge the responses and publish the winner next week. The prize will be … a date with editor Harry Kazianis!!

And to be sure, the Varyag will reportedly carry about 26 fixed-wing combat aircraft—the official People’s Daily speculated that J-15s will operate from its deck for the first time during the ongoing shakedown—and about 24 helicopters. (I hem-and-haw on the exact figures because an air wing’s composition is not fixed. The U.S. Navy has experimented with various configurations over the years.) TheVikramaditya/Gorshkov’s complement is a more modest 16 tactical aircraft—Mig-29Ks were part of the package deal for the ship—and 10 helicopters. The Chinese carrier’s fighter/attack force, then, is over half-again as large as its Indian counterpart’s. Quantity isn’t everything, but it is important in air-to-air combat. Advantage: China….

Indians seem to excel at air power. U.S. Air Force pilots who face off against their Indian counterparts in mock combat rave about the skills and panache of Indian airmen. And while the Vikramaditya is a new class of flattop and the MiG-29K a new aircraft for the Indian Navy, carrier operations are nothing new for the navy. The service has operated at least one flattop for over half a century. For example, INS Viraat, a Centaur­-class vessel built for Britain’s Royal Navy, has served in the Indian fleet for a quarter-century. In short, Indian mariners are steeped in a naval-aviation culture that the Chinese are only starting to instill. Advantage: India.

The second half is worth emphasizing. Whatever size advantages the ex-Varyag may have, the Indians have fifty years of experience operating aircraft carriers, which matters a lot for the extraordinarily complicated tasks associated with naval aviation. Moreover, whatever problems INS Vikramaditya may have, I’m pretty sure that in the short term her major combat and propulsion systems will be more reliable than those of ex-Varyag, which have been pieced together by a navy with no experience of building or operating a warship of that size.

With regards to the skill of the airmen, it’s certainly true that Indian pilots have a better reputation that their Chinese counterparts, having had more success in combat and in major exercises with foreign partners. It’s hard to say how that would play out in the short term, however, given that the recent Indian experience with carrier aircraft has come in the form of Harriers, rather than fixed-wing MiG-29s. But because pilot quality is most often about developing an effective system of selection and training, and because we’re considerably more confident that India has developed such a system than China, it’s probably fair to count pilot quality as a point in India’s favor. However, it’s also worth noting that neither the Indian nor the Chinese carrier will be well-equipped to conduct strike operations; the ski-jump takeoff format substantially limits aircraft payload.

The more interesting issue might be this; news stories of China’s new carrier have abounded, along with solemn State Department expressions of concern over “what China might do with it’s aircraft carrier.” At the same time, very few people who don’t specialize in the field seem to know that India is getting a new carrier, building two more, and enjoys half a century of experience with naval aviation.

Chinese Aerospace Power is a collection of essays generated at a December 2008 colloquium organized by the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute. The collection is held together by a common focus on maritime oriented Chinese aerospace military capabilities. Edited by Andrew Erickson, CAP is part of a series of similar volumes on Chinese maritime military issues. Taken together, the essays supply a vision of how the United States and the People’s Republic of China envision high technology warfare against one another. In some sense this would remain asymmetric warfare; the PLA would attack perceived US weaknesses using means that the US itself does not normally employ, including ground based cruise missiles and conventional ballistic missiles. However, conflict between the modern PLA and the modern US military establishment would look much more “symmetric” than any conflict that the United States has been involved in since the Vietnam War. The battlespace would horizontally extend deep into China and into the Pacific, and vertically extend between space and the sea floor.

CAP avoids treating any particular system as the key to Chinese military power. Even the much touted ASBMs are placed within context of other Chinese capabilities, and of the role they’d be expected to play within the system of anti-access systems. Another element of this system that has received less attention than it should is the PLA’s collection of land attack cruise missiles (detailed in a chapter by Michael Chase), which provide a similar but somewhat more manageable threat to US bases and ships in the region. Together with the ballistic missiles, the cruise missiles have the potential to overwhelm air defense capabilities, especially given the limitations on total number of SAMs carried by US air defense ships. A chapter by Toshi Yoshihara tracks Chinese views of the development of sea based anti-ballistic missile defense in the United States and Japan, with the upshot that China views such systems as a genuine, but potentially manageable, problem.

CAP also highlights some areas in which technological and doctrinal development has lagged. In particular, the PLAN appears roughly a generation behind in aerial anti-submarine warfare, even allowing the decay of US capabilities over the past decades. This includes both fixed wing maritime surveillance aircraft and ship-borne helicopters. Indeed, the development of helicopter technology and doctrine in the PLA has lagged in general, with total numbers of rotary aircraft running behind international standards. This may have been due to some uncertainty regarding how responsibility for helicopters is divided between the PLAAF and ground combat organizations. In the future, it will be worth watching PLA-assisted disaster relief operations (both domestic and international) to track continued development of rotary aircraft capabilities.

CAP includes some discussion of Chinese carrier aviation, but this is not a major focus. In short, it will take some time for the Chinese to perfect carrier aviation, and between now and and the presumed endpoint (modern, fixed wing carrier capabilities with 3-5 active platforms) there is much time and money to be spent, as well as many choices to be made. The Shi Lang gives some indication of what these choices may be (ski jump carriers launching mainly air superiority aircraft) but it’s still possible for the PLAN to go in other directions. In particular, Chinese development of big deck amphibious warships will be very interesting to watch; these warships are likely to carry helicopters for the foreseeable future, but Chinese development of some kind of equivalent to the F-35B isn’t out of the question in the long term. Again, people will be paying a lot of attention to China’s use of naval aviation assets in disaster relief operations. Aircraft carriers obviously represent a move in a different direction than the anti-access capabilities represented by cruise and ballistic missiles; even ski-jump carriers are power projection tools, designed to provide cover over task forces deployed at distance.

Given my own focus on how the configuration of military institutions affects policy, strategy, and procurement, I read the essays that touched upon the role played by the PLA Second Artillery Corps with great interest. The Second Artillery is responsible for ballistic missile development and deployment, and has become both a partner and bureaucratic competitor for the PLAAF and the PLAN. The Second Artillery historically had primary responsibility for nuclear deterrence against the Soviet Union and the United States, and accordingly controlled Chinese ballistic missile forces. Over time, however, a potential conventional role for the SAC in a conflict over Taiwan developed. With improved targeting technology, conventional SAC ballistic missiles could disable airfields and other critical military targets in the first hours of war. Later, the potential use of Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles would give the SAC a role in deterring US intervention.

There are two interesting stories here. The first is a basic institutional logic about how a bureaucracy develops capabilities beyond its core mission. Not entirely without prodding, the SAC has created a non-nuclear mission for itself, and indeed would be expected to play a critical and decisive role in superpower conflict without direct reliance on nuclear weapons. When a (quasi) service is built around ballistic missiles, it finds new and innovative ways of using ballistic missiles, especially when it needs such innovations to maintain political and bureaucratic relevance. In this case, the SAC has pursued innovations that have potentially decisive effect at the operational and strategic levels. Institutional design has consequences; build a service around bombers, and you get interesting bomber technology and doctrine, build it around missiles and you get interesting missile developments.

The second is an inevitable counter-part to the first; divisions of responsibility between bureaucratic organizations invariably create conflicts between those organizations. We know less about conflicts between the PLAAF and the SAC than we do about those between the USAF and USN, but such conflicts definitely exist, and often appear to coalesce around control of information technology. Modern warfare is extremely hungry with regards to information, communications, and bandwidth, and the PLAN, PLAAF, and SAC all want access to and control of the platforms and capabilities that create and distribute information.

In an actual war context, we don’t know how these conflicts would play out. PLA anti-access capabilities involves use of a system of systems designed to deter and defeat efforts to penetrate sea and air space near the Chinese littoral. These systems include diesel electric submarines, surface launched cruise missiles, land launched cruise missiles (targeting both enemy ships and enemy airbases), air launched cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. On the surface this seems an exceedingly imposing collection of capabilities. In actual fighting, coordination between services and capabilities would prove extremely demanding. Interservice conflict invariably produces friction, notwithstanding “jointness” or whatever term the Chinese may use to describe the concept of interservice operations. The collection does an excellent job of highlighting where the rifts lay, and describing the effect that they’ve had on planning and procurement.

More broadly, the discussion of interservice conflict in the Chinese context highlights both the contingency of specific configurations of military power, and the policy impact of particular institutional choices. As I have labored to argue, there is nothing natural or necessarily optimal about the current distribution of responsibilities across US military services; other countries make much different choices, even when they face similar security environments. More importantly, the choice of configuration has a big impact on how doctrine, technology, and procurement will play out. Military bureaucracies almost invariably compete with one another, with the most serious issues arising when mission requirements cross service boundaries. China now faces a situation where exceedingly complex operational tasks are divided between three “services,” an issue that may prove problematic if push ever comes to shove.

As with all such collections, some entries are stronger than others. There are very few clunkers, however, and anyone interested in the subject will have their own favorites. Some of the essays could be difficult for a layman to penetrate, but an understanding of the arguments has value beyond the evaluation of Chinese military capabilities. These essays shine a light on how China is thinking about fighting the United States, deterring US intervention in regional conflict, and shaping US behavior in the Western Pacific. Given that the book is the product of a Naval War College colloquium and that it includes the work of many individuals close to the development of USN doctrine and strategy, it also gives good indication of how the United States views the prospect of war against China. It bears note that the book is relevant whether or not we evaluate a war between China and the United States as likely; the technologies, doctrines, and procurement priorities outlined will guide US and Chinese policy for at least a generation, and calculations regarding the likelihood and likely course of war will guide how the two nations related to one another diplomatically.

For those with even more interest in the subject, here’s a talk on the book by Andrew Erickson: